Gluten Free Sourdough "Rye" Style Bread

Here's another multi-grain bread recipe using my gluten free sourdough starter!
This time I decided to make a "rye" style bread. Although rye bread is not gluten free, you can mimic it's flavor using teff flour and caraway seeds. Some people like to throw in a little cocoa power, instant coffee granules, orange zest or onion flakes, but I wanted to keep this recipe simple. Feel free to throw in any of those additional flavorings to suit your own taste. The flavor of this bread is pretty darn close to what I remember rye bread tasting like. The addition of sourdough starter just kicks it up a notch!

The Making of Gluten Free Sourdough Bread

I am a bread lover! I can't help it! However, my bread eating days came to a screeching halt after a realization that gluten was the reason for several chronic health problems that I was having. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out. In the beginning, gluten free bread was just depressing for me. A far cry from the wheat bread I loved and made several times a week. I thought that I would never again enjoy a sandwich made with tender, flavorful bread. Though, as time went on, I learned to make pretty good gluten free bread. Mastering this art had become an obsession for me. Everything that I knew about bread baking had to be relearned. Gluten free bread is nothing like wheat bread. I tried in vain to create a dough that could be kneaded, yet still produce a soft loaf of bread that was edible the next day. That never happened!

Gluten Free Artisan Sourdough At Last!

Since starting a gluten free diet several years ago, I have longed for a great loaf of sourdough bread! This is one of my favorite types of bread. I attempted to make sourdough bread in my early gluten free days, but never made what I would call "good" sourdough. Several were very tasty but the texture was another story. Not even close! I simply didn't have enough experience baking gluten free bread back then. After years of relearning how to make bread, I figured I would give it another shot. After all, I have gotten pretty good at making gluten free bread.

Gluten Free Sourdough Starter

A gluten free sourdough starter isn't much different than wheat based starter. Both start with flour and water and over time produce a healthy batch of natural yeast for sourdough bread. I have tried several different flour combinations for the starter you see above. Finally coming up with one that I really like! It's simply two parts sorghum flour, one part white rice flour and one part teff flour. This combination makes for a really healthy starter and a good tasting sourdough.